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Queen Latifah’s show beautiful “U.N.I.T.Y” of past, present styles

Queen Latifah's intimate performance was a season highlight for the Kravis. (AP file photo)

In a way, Queen Latifah’s cool, cozy show that transformed the cavernous Kravis Center into an out-of-the-way little jazz club, ended at the beginning – that is to say, at the beginning of her career?

“You dare me?” the artist also known as Dana Owens teased the crowd, whose interest in the Oscar-nominated rapper/singer/actress/Cover Girl pitch diva. They did indeed.

So the Queen, clad in a billowy black tunic, leggings and impressively complicated boots she admitted to having trouble walking in, nodded knowingly to her band and launched into 1994’s “U.N.I.T.Y.” It’s a smart, sharp condemnation of the misogyny and domestic violence in hip-hop, and while I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that many of the gray, staid heads visibly intrigued and flowing with the Queen weren’t vibing in the clubs 20 years ago.

But those of us who first met the Queen in her high African crown and feminist rhyming days (that would be me) and even those who came to know Latifah through “Chicago,” “Hairspray” or Lifetime’s “Steel Magnolias,” or her standards collections “The Dana Owens Album” and “Trav’lin Light” all seemed entranced and united (U.N.I.T.E.D?) in their approval.
Relaxed and charming, Latifah spent a lot of her show talking to the crowd, from the rowdies in the back with the specially airbrushed sweater with her face on it, to the more staid folks in the front that she referred to fondly as “the living room.” Her entire mood was one of comfortable graciousness, a mood augmented by her excellent jazz band and talented singers. It was just a party, whether vibing on a vamped interlude of Stevie Wonder’s “Living For The City” or letting the band show off on Al Green’s “Love And Happiness,” or a bouncy standard like “I Love Being Here With You.”

Latifah spoke of her dreams to be a rapper, an actress and also a singer of standards, and apparently she’s achieved all three. Her vocal gifts were most apparent on “I Know Where I’ve Been,” her showstopper from “Hairspray,” and an ethereal, lovely version of Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man,” which she said she was introduced to be her mother, who has been hospitalized recently.

Her mention of that, and her request for prayers and good thoughts, seemed incredibly natural and cordial, just like a conversation with a friend. By the show’s end and the satisfying rap break, that vibe was complete — Latifah seemed like she was performing in her living room, rather than to a thousand or so friends.

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